Wednesday, December 7, 2016

A Pearl Harbor Birthday Wish

December 7, 2016

Today is my birthday.

I tell you this not to elicit Facebook or other birthday
greetings (as pleasant and appreciated as they are) but because this date also
commemorates the 75th anniversary of a fateful day in our country’s
history -- the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
Each birthday, though there have been many happy ones, carries the
ghost, the shadow, of what happened there as TV spots and newspaper blurbs
recall December 7, 1941.

This devastating attack (2,500 killed, 1,000 wounded)
occurred after the U.S. refused to continue trading iron and gasoline to Japan
which sorely needed them to continue to execute its conflict with China. The
magnitude of the death and destruction ... the surprise raid ... left the
United States with little choice but to abandon its isolationist policy and
join World War II already in progress.

My earliest memory, after being primed for a birthday
celebration, was to see my mother crying. This was supposed to be a happy day.
Clearly it was not. A big, wooden, domed radio with a blue star-spangled dial,
once so magical, now spewed forth a series of staticky announcements and became
an instrument of fright and tears. Other adults gathered around and a tiny
birthday cake with three pink candles sat forgotten and forlorn on the round
oak table.

I was too young to understand then and for several years
to come. My brother and I played with sticks and stones and rope swings. We
played tag and Red Rover, hide-and-seek ... toys were scarce. Only toward the
end of the war when we went to Saturday-afternoon matinees and were a captive
audience to the dramatic newsreels of tanks and bombs (no changing channels
here) did I comprehend that the bits of tin foil we were saving from sticks of
gum were for the "war effort" and what the magnitude of that effort
was. Victory gardens sprouted again as they had in World War I. Blackout drills
were held in homes and schools. Families coalesced as grandparents and older
siblings took on parenting roles while mothers went to work and fathers were
conscripted into military service.

Perhaps the thing I remember most is rationing. I was old
enough to walk to the corner store with the thin leather wallet containing the
tiny perforated stamps that I could exchange for the family's supply of sugar
and coffee. I never saw my normally placid mother so angry as when my brother
and I ruined a whole pound of rationed coffee by contaminating it with every
dark colored spice we could find in the cupboard (cinnamon, pepper, nutmeg) in
an ill-conceived April Fools’ Day joke. My mother's ire was no joke as she went
without her morning coffee for two weeks -- her allotment had been spoiled and
there was no getting more at any price.

If I had the ability to create a montage here, I would
show you a split-screen documentary of the years from 1941 to 2016. One half
would depict the country in all its progress (television, microwave ovens, the
moon landing, and computers), conflicts (Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm, 9/11)
and social movements (Civil Rights and school desegregation, hippies, woman's
liberation). The other half would show the chapters of my personal life: education,
military service (where I met my husband), marriage, children, moving to
Vermont to follow a dream, advancing to grandparenthood and the joy of
great-grandparenting.

Oddly enough, both halves merge at about the same place. The
two split-screens would become one where people from all walks of life started furiously
and furtively poking their fingers and drumming their thumbs on the surface of tiny
devices that contained all the knowledge of the world. The Encyclopedia
Britannica, once a prized family possession, became nothing more than a
doorstop, castoff relics that not even libraries would take in. Traditional modes
of communication like writing letters and placing telephone calls have been outpaced
by the expediency of e-mails and text messages. From The Donald's tweets to
Hillary's e-mails, the media has climbed on board with the power of fast and
brief communication and its fearsome capacity to affect us.

Relationships, personal and political, are made or broken
in a few twitches of spastic digits and family members text each other across
the dinner table. It is a curious phenomenon that has become as pervasive
throughout the country as it has in our personal lives. We have indeed crossed
the Rubicon (yes, I Googled it to make sure my understanding was correct) when
it comes to technology. Good or bad, We the People are left to cope with the advances
we have made.

We are now both literally and figuratively at arm’s-length
from each other -- and especially from our troops. In World War II, the entire civilian population was
involved through rationing, conserving, saving and guarding against the
possibility of attack on U.S. soil. So why are we now so horribly disconnected now when
we have the ability to be more connected than ever?

As my latest birthday cake – crammed with enough candles
to burn a house down -- is being prepared, we as a country are trying desperately
to figure out how best to honor and connect with the few remaining military men
and women from that long-ago conflict. Would they even look at the memes passed
through the social media channels – the ones that show a flag waving against
the silhouette of a soldier in the background and a curly script in the
foreground that says: "Thank You," (as well-intentioned and appreciated
as they are)?

There has to be something more – and better -- than that.

Those aging veterans didn't have PTSD -- but there was an
abundance of "shellshock." They endured and suffered to bring you and
me the power to act as we think or say what we want without hindrance or
restraint -- the very dictionary definition of freedom. We must, simply must,
guard and respect those freedoms and use them with accountability for they came
at a very steep price.

So here’s an idea: Why not use that clever little device just
off the end of your fingertips to Google: "How to honor a veteran"? You’ll
instantly be served up hundreds of ideas from providing a ride to buying a meal
to arranging for the adoption of a companion dog. The one I like best? Listen
to their stories; story-telling is a connectedness like no other. And if you
listen to one vet's stories, in a sense, you have listened to them all ... the
fear, the deprivation, camaraderie, courage and deep longing for peace.

And do it now -- don't wait for next Veteran’s Day to
roll around or even next Memorial Day. And don't, for heaven's sake, wait 75
years!